Edmonton Lebanese family must leave Canada in a month: Officials

Mahmoud El Annan (second from right) poses for a photo with his family, including wife Maysaa (left), Abbas (second from left), 3, Kadinje, 4, and baby daughter Ezabella, in Edmonton, Alta., on Wednesday January 6, 2016. Mahmoud El Annan faces deportation from Canada by the end of the month, and is receiving help from his brother Wissam, who is from Fort McMurray. Ian Kucerak/Edmonton Sun

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Wissam El Annan says his brother’s family fled from Lebanon to Canada for their lives.

Now, his family is about to be sent back.

“He wants to run away for his life, and now they are putting him in a situation where they are going to put him on an airplane with his kids, tie him down and send him back,” said Wissam.

When Wissam was able to get a tourist visa to enter the United States over a decade ago, he left Lebanon and never looked back.

Shortly after he arrived in the United States, he entered Canada as a teenage refugee.

“This is heaven to us,” said Wissam, who since then has settled in Fort McMurray where he has established two successful restaurant businesses, and is proud of living the Canadian dream.

His brother, Mahmoud, too had spent years applying for visas trying to flee violence in Lebanon.

Speaking on behalf of his brother due to a language barrier, Wissam said Mahmoud had been the victim of gangs, and his shop was repeatedly vandalized as these groups tried to extort him.

Two years ago, Mahmoud was finally granted a visa to go to the United States. Chasing the same dream his brother achieved, Mahmoud’s family left Lebanon behind and arrived at the Canadian border in Ontario.

Since then, Mahmoud has got himself a good job and a house for his wife and now three children — his oldest daughter Kadinje, 4, and his son Abbas, 3, came with him from Lebanon while his youngest daughter, Ezabella, just two months old, was born in Canada — and his two older children are enrolled in school programs.

But after years of navigating a complex immigration system, spending thousands of dollars in legal fees and filling out countless applications, on Tuesday Mahmoud reluctantly signed the final papers securing his deportation. Citizenship and Immigration Canada is aware of the case but on Wednesday cited privacy considerations.

The family must leave Canada in a month, or be removed forcefully.

Wissam says immigration officials do not believe Mahmoud’s family is in danger if they return to Lebanon, and therefore he and his family are not refugees and their claim is denied.

The El Annan family lived in Bourj el-Barajneh, a southern suburb of Beirut, where on November 12 twin suicide bombings killed at least 37 people and injured another 180. Wissam says two of those killed were his cousins.

Mahmoud can reapply for Canadian residency, but only after returning to Lebanon.

Wissam added that it is frustrating to watch as the Canadian government makes a show of welcoming 25,000 Syrian refugees at an estimated cost of $1.2 billion, while simultaneously evicting a hard working family seeking the same dream.

“If we keep them in Canada, we are keeping them alive, we are keeping them safe,” said Wissam, hoping the Canadian government will show the family leniency and allow them to reapply for residency from within Canada.

Not all refugee claims made in Canada get accepted. The following numbers show the amounts since 2010 (including the first half of 2015 only) of cases that have been referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada along with the numbers that have been accepted in that year.

Those applications not accepted were either abandoned, withdrawn by the applicant or the board or were outright rejected due to things like war crimes or organized crime backgrounds.